Pula and S2E want to solve Africa’s startup problem with British aid money
British aid is funding initiatives by Pula and S2E to tackle the tough challenge of startup exits in Africa, aiming to boost investor confidence and sustainable growth.
For years, investors in African tech have grappled with a question: how to return capital within a fund’s seven to ten-year lifecycle. On a continent with few public examples of venture-scale exits, that question has grown more relevant in recent years as many African venture firms approach the end of their first fund cycle. Kevin Simmons, principal for catalytic investments at FSD Africa, a Nairobi-based development agency funded by British aid, spent years at LoftyInc Capital, an early-stage African venture capital firm, observing the problem across a portfolio of more than 165 companies. “We’ve had some struggles exiting some of those businesses,” he told TechCabal in an interview. “We’ve done well on many, but increasingly it became clear when we started to take an ecosystem look that there just wasn’t enough.” Some investors have found workarounds, selling shares in startups to each other. Secondaries accounted for 23% of exits in 2025 , the highest share on record, as funds sold stakes to other funds rather than waiting for a company to buy startups. Foreign acquirers, meanwhile, who once absorbed much of the exit activity, have pulled back sharply—from 56% of exits in 2020 t
